The Procurement for Good consortium met for the last introductory visit to the project food hubs on March 19th and 20th.

The Procurement for Good (PFG) consortium met for the last introductory visit to the project food hubs on March 19^th and 20th, enjoying a beautifully sunny two days in Wales with Richard and Mary, our hosts at Cultivate Food Hub.

As seems to have become something of a tradition, the day began with coffee and cakes in the sunshine at Cultivate HQ in Newtown, Powys.There were chocolate and coffee cookies, apple and cinnamon cake, as well as a vegan chocolate cake. Many thanks to the team for feeding us so well during the visit.

Cultivate has operated as a Community Benefit Society inNewtown, Powys, since 2014. With approximately one-acre garden and orchards the site is home to a range of projects, including a forest school (with a beautiful wood shelter and fences built by Coppice Creations), 60 micro allotments, some communal kitchen space, a pizza oven and an area used for apple juice, cider and cider vinegar production.

 Participants from these projects use the site throughout the week, giving Cultivate Food Hub a distinct community-orientated feel. The site feels entrepreneurial too - and it was interesting to hear about the different projects that have come about through activity and people on the site - a community veg box supporting growers, a market hall and deli, and a green gym that meets to help with site/crop maintenance were just a few examples.

 We were treated to tortilla and open sandwiches over a working lunch where we explored the policy and cultural context that Cultivate Food Hub is situated in. The group heard about the Bwyd Powys Food Vision andAction Plan for the region which was launched in 2024, and some of the projects that this work was helping to coordinate.

 During the roundtable the group learnt about the buoyant ThirdSector in Wales that is well-supported by the Welsh Government through policies such as the Well-being of Future Generations Act 2015, the Agriculture Act 2023 and the Social Partnership and Public Procurement Act 2023. Not only did there seem to be a good deal of opportunity in the Welsh policy context around food, but the group at Cultivate explained how their efforts to add social value in the food chain were being met with a degree of openness, and potentially excitement, from policy makers across the region.

The afternoon’s roundtable discussion was also an opportunity to share the developments at Cultivate Food Hub in supporting local growers in the region. Practical efforts such as a tool library (which lends out expensive items to local growers such as salad cutters and seeders) theGood Food Loop (which connects growers to transport hubs/routes across the region), and the Welsh Veg in Schools programme showed how Cultivate Food Hub is using their influence in partnership with other organisations to help the growers on the ground in Wales get their produce into local markets.

Moreover, between September 2022 and June 2023, Cultivate took part in a pilot coordinated by Social Farms & Gardens to demonstrate that the public sector can procure efficiently from small-scale producers using methods that benefit both the natural environment and the local economy. Aspart of this initiative, Cultivate Food Hub facilitated the delivery of potatoes, carrots, salads, fruit and microgreens produced by local suppliers to public sector institutions such as schools run by Powys County Council and Neath Port Talbot College. Resourced by the Procurement for Good project, Cultivate is hoping to build on this experience and increase its supply of sustainably produced food to the public sector over the next years.

In the evening we visited Hafan Y Afon, a riverside community hub, to eat a delicious meal cooked by Cultivate’s Mental Lentils. We were served a potato and winter squash curry with naked oats, green tomato chutney and a Kale salad. Everything from the evening’s meal outside of spices was cooked using only ingredients grown or found within Wales and the UK. The food was exceptional, and we wish Annie and Chris from Mental Lentil all the best as they continue to host local parties and events in the area with great local food that encourages community-making.

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Read part 2 of this blog here.